Four youth icons dominate UP poll campaign

Political observers believe that the trend has been set and that the polling in the different polling phases would also be on a brisk note.

This, they feel, is largely due to the youth leaders since youngsters can connect well with them as compared to their senior
politicians.

These Gen X leaders are heli-hopping to various parts of the state in their efforts to improve their respective party kitties.

Rahul Gandhi earlier presented the image of a restrained politician, restricting his visits to his mother Sonia’s Rae Bareli and his own Amethi parliamentary constituency. He generally adopted the style of jumping the security cordon to meet the people who lined up to greet him in his constituency.

But now, Rahul's speeches are more and more aggressive as he targets Chief Minister Mayawati. He even ate and stayed overnight in Dalit homes, infuriating Mayawati to the extent that she had taken action against the District Magistrate for giving the Congress leader such a leverage.

Despite the fact that sister Priyanka has rushed to the side of brother to assist him in campaigning, she has limited herself to just the parliamentary constituencies of Rae Bareli and Amethi.

According to political analyst Dr Ramesh Dixit, Professor in the Political Science Department, Lucknow University, Rahul’s campaigning would definitely bear fruit, though not to the expected strength.

Described as the more popular youth icon, Akhilesh Yadav enjoys a good rapport with grassroot workers as he cycles his way to even the most remote parts in the state - The cycle, incidentally, is also the symbol of the Samajwadi Party.

His cycle yatras had begun well in advance of the announcement of the Vidhan Sabha polls. Dressed in a white kurta-pyjama with a red cap on his head, Akhilesh says, “We are committed to end corruption and work for the interests of the common man, whether it be in the field of education or medicine”.

His father, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, has already announced in his party manifesto that they would distribute laptops and tablets to students. In fact, Yadav even assured that if his party came to power, they would convert all the parks built by Mayawati into hospitals and schools.

Akhilesh has already cycled his way to the hearts of the common man, who see him as their leader. In fact he has even been projected as the chief ministerial candidate though he says only Mulayam would be the CM.

Rashtriya Lok Dal MP and son of  party chief Ajit Singh, Jayant Choudhary, holds meetings with the farmers in his Jat belt of western UP.

Despite the fact that he is an MP, he is contesting Assembly elections from Maat in his Mathura parliamentary constituency. The reason, he says, is that “I want to be a part of state politics because you get lost at the Centre."

He is carrying the torch from his father, who in turn got it from his father, the late Choudhary Charan Singh who was chief minister of UP and later the Prime Minister of the country in the 1970s. Jayant is holding kisan panchayats and poll meetings in his region.

And then there is Varun Gandhi,who is BJP MP from Pilibhit. He was in the eye of the storm in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections over an inflammatory election speech in which he had targeted the minority community. His controversial speech had put the BJP leaders on the defensive and him behind the bars.

Ever since, senior BJP leaders have marginalised Varun and asked him to be softer in his approach. Surprisingly while all the Gen X leaders are hogging the limelight, Varun has been restricted to just two parliamentary constituencies - his own and that of mother Maneka’s Aonla constituency.

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